Rev. Dr. Brad (Gabriel) Nassif has been the pastor of Holy Transfiguration Church since 2024. His life-experiences include being a small business owner, salesman, grocery clerk, teacher, and paraprofessional for profoundly disabled children ages 5-18. His wife, Barbara, earned a Master of Divinity degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. They have been married for 36 years, and their daughter Melanie is married to Michael DeRenzo. Fr Brad grew up in a Lebanese Orthodox family at St Mary’s Orthodox Church in Wichita, Kansas.
Prior to being pastor, Fr Brad was a Director of Academic Programs at Fuller Seminary, and a Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University. He earned the Ph.D. in Patristics and Early Church History under the Orthodox theologian, Fr John Meyendorff, at Fordham University; Master of Divinity degree from St Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary; Master of Arts in New Testament from Denver Seminary; Master of Arts in European History from Wichita State University; and Bachelor of Arts in Religion and Philosophy from Friends University in Wichita.
In a letter to the Patriarch of Antioch, the late Metropolitan Philip of blessed memory has described Fr. Brad as “a trusted theologian of the Orthodox Church.” Fr Brad teaches New Testament in the Antiochian House of Studies. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute (Berkeley, CA) and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary (MA). His publications include, among others, The Philokalia: A Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality, foreword by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (Oxford University Press), and The Evangelical Theology of the Orthodox Church, foreword by Fr Andrew Louth (St Vladimir’s Press). Fr Brad has built bridges of understanding between Orthodox and Protestant traditions. Fr John McGuckin from Oxford University describes him as “the leading world-expert on the dialogue of the Orthodox Church with Evangelical Protestant traditions.”
